Behind the scenes with the Dubai police supercar fleet

The fleet includes a Bugatti Veyron, Aston Martin ONE-77, Ferrari FF, and much more.

The Dubai policeman is sitting in a director's chair in front of a McLaren MP4-12C, and just behind that, a Bugatti Veyron. He's bragging that the total value of the cars in the police force's garage is around $6,500,000, give or take a few hundred thousand. This is already pretty surreal.

And then he rattles off the entire fleet: a 700-hp Brabus-modified G63, a Lamborghini Aventador, a Ferrari FF, a Ford Mustang, an Aston Martin One77, a Mercedes SLS AMG, an Audi R8, a Bentley Continental GT, a Nissan GT-R, and some sort of American cruiser, maybe a Harley. And of course, the 12C and the Veyron mentioned earlier.

The only thing I could think was, a Roush Mustang? Is having to drive it the Dubai-cop equivalent of a crappy beat?

And it gets even stranger when you realize what they use them for. If you think it's to chase down perps or for high-speed patrol duties, you're very wrong. The whole point of this $6.5 million super-fleet is to collect likes Facebook and selfies on the streets of Dubai, all to burnish the image of the cops and their country. Basically, it's PR to make the police force seem friendly.

Hey, it works. The Dubai police point to the social media firestorms that erupt every time one of their cars cruises down a luxury-shop-studded avenue. People freak out and pose with the cops. They garner millions of shares and views. Tourists and locals peck at their phones like maniacs. It's a wildly successful solution to what I'm not really sure was much of a problem before, but … it's Dubai. Just go with it.